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I haven't posted a new entry in a while.
And throughout this "while" - almost seven months at this point - I've been wondering what has been in the way of publishing content.
"Why," I ask myself, angrily in the mirror, "Am I stuck?"
The answer hasn't appeared.
It's not for lack of ideas! I feel an itch every day to add to my list of topics to cover, amazing women to interview, ways to grow this project into something more impactful and useful for others like myself.
I have continued to hold interviews, transcribe our discussions, and start drafting my content. But before I reach a point where I feel "ready" to send that content into the world, I hit THE WALL.
NO PAIN NO GAIN (and other sayings I hate)
resistance: the opposition that a substance offers to the flow of electric current. measured in ohms.
I've been paying close attention to the theme of resistance in my work and life. And honestly, using the definition that I learned in Electrical Engineering 101 makes a lot of sense to me.
Resistance is something we all experience, every day, to different degrees. We're trying to flow and grow, and then we hit SOMETHING that slows it down - a feeling of doubt, a weirdly phrased e-mail that we over-analyze, the unfamiliar or uncomfortable.
Our energy, like the faithful electron, wants to travel the path of least resistance. In an electrical circuit (assuming applied voltage is constant), as resistance increases, the flow of energy decreases. In our life, in our work, in our brains, it's the same story: our energy wants to run away from a path with resistance.
"Is there a more comfortable pattern already established that I can follow? Let's do that instead." - Our Brains, Literally All The Time.
It's work to overcome feelings of resistance. It's easy to avoid, pull away, settle into the known.
Am I telling you things you already know? Yes. You've heard this before.
"NOTHING WORTH DOING IS EASY" and "NO PAIN, NO GAIN" - all those motivational posters out there have given us awareness that doing big things is hard.
Hear me out, though.
What if you were so in tune with yourself - so clear on your goals, values, and purpose - so confident in your decision-making - that you could overcome that resistance with joy?
What's all this for, anyway?
I've lived a life ascribing to values, goals, achievements that are societally accepted as positive - I like to be recognized for accomplishments, I like to have nice things, I like to make good money.
But are these my reason for living, for working? No.
We all have to have a deeper fuel to keep us going outside of the next external milestone.
(examples of milestones are events like graduate, get job, get married, have kids, buy house, get promoted, retire, die)
That deeper fuel has to come from within. We have to do the work to understand what it is that we truly value.
It can't be what Dad expects, what looks good on social media, what your CEO wants to see - it has to come entirely from YOU. So often we think we know what's important to us based on our environments, and stop before we dig go deeper and ask "Why?"
So how do you discover your true values, your ultimate purpose?
You have to look.
There are plenty of free resources out there to get started. Here are two:
If you want to go deeper, you can buy books that focus on this type of self-discovery. Here are a few on the subject:
If, like me, you're so confused about your values that you don't trust free resources or books, you can look for a coach who specializes in this type of work. I personally worked with Jen Anderson at Moving Forward Solutions last year and cannot say enough good things about her.
Since July of 2021, the month of my last post, I have been growing. Like many women I meet in the field, I'm always pushing to be better, the best, a role model.
And thanks to my stubbornness, desire to understand the entire universe, and refusal to satisfy for mediocrity, I would argue I've learned more about myself the past seven or so months than the rest of my 32 years combined. I'm feeling lighter, stronger, calmer. I am (mostly) trusting in my decisions and abilities.
One day, I'll consider publicly sharing all the resources that moved me out of general malaise and into this more agreeable life rhythm. That is, after all, the purpose of this site in its essence: to evangelize tools for technical women to live their best life.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm still unclear about the source of my resistance around blog posts. I'm still defining and refining my purpose and values - to understand whether this resistance means "Do Something Else" or "Keep Pushing Through". But the more time I spend zeroing in on my "why," the closer I get to that answer.